The cannabis industry has joined the ranks of Hillary Clinton now that a fake news meme has caught on regarding a major corporate interest entering into national marijuana distribution. The site TMZWorldNews ran an article last month titled “Newport Introduces ‘Marijuana Cigarettes’ That Will Go On Sale Next Year.”

The story posited that the major cigarette manufacturer intended to unleash a line of cannabis cigarettes called “Newport Nirvana” and read:



TMZWorldNews is a self-labeled “satire” news site, but they are in fact a fake news site that has ripped off the moniker of the (barely) legitimate news source TMZ and now reports inflammatory and provocative false news so as to bait more clickage.

The story seems like a fairly obvious fake, but the internet rumor verification site Snopes ran a check on it just to cover all bases. Snopes reports that TMZWorldNews has previously run deranged and ludicrous stories including ones that claimed a black baby was shot by a cop who thought its pacifier was a gun, that a semen-drinking challenge resulted in a coma for a college student, and that 80 percent of black men in Atlanta were gay.

The story comes at a time when fake news is becoming real news itself, after Facebook came under fire for promoting fake news and after the insane/absurd/delusional Pizzagate scandal resulted in a shooting at a Washington D.C. pizzeria.